The Latest on Burma

Hallo aus Deutschland!

Our founder Marcus and I are in Vöhl, Germany, not far from Frankfurt, meeting with our partner organization about bringing Project: AK-47 into Europe, among many other things. I’ll keep you posted on developments, but for now I wanted to be sure you were aware of a couple current events in Burma:

Aung San Suu Kyi on trial

Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi was recently charged with breaking the terms of her house arrest when an American man swam to her lakeside home to warn her about a dream he had in which she was assassinated. Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest and was scheduled to be released in June. Though there is now a proposed sentence of 5 years in the maximum-security Insein prison, we are hearing on the ground that there is much division in government ranks about an appropriate outcome of freedom or further incarceration for Suu Kyi.

16-year-old child soldier abducted by the army escapes

Burma unfortunately is stuck with the highest concentration of child soldiers in the world. One such child, Win Sga, now aged 16, was forced into the army at the age of 15. In this case, the older soldiers were very abusive in their treatment of him, and his officer withheld his salary. His officer taunted him, saying, "If you dare to run away, you can run. But if you meet the rebel army, they will kill you." Win did choose to run, but he also risked a conversation with some villagers who told him that a local army could actually help him. Win found his way to the local battalion headquarters, where he surrendered his rifle and three magazines in exchange for care and civilian clothes.

If you would like more info on these issues or would like to talk about them further, feel free to post your thoughts [diplomatically] on our discussion board!